Report – VW – Suzuki contention to be settled by arbitration court

According to persons with knowledge of the matter, Volkswagen and Suzuki are close to settling a long-running dispute over a failed partnership as a London arbitration court could have a ruling by year’s end.

The VW-Suzuki dispute that involves problems after a failed partnership plan had its arbitrage court finish witness hearings, with the sources pointing the verdict is now just a matter of months away, but maintaining their anonymity, as they are not allowed to discuss private details of the matter.

A couple of persons said that as the London-based arbitration court has already wrapped up witness examination, based on previous legal disputes of such nature, the ruling should come somewhere before the end of the year.

Back in January 2010, Volkswagen AG decided to buy a 19.9 % stake in the Japanese automaker, worth at the time around 1.7 billion euros ($2.3 billion), which then Suzuki tried to buy back in 2011. After the German automaker denied the buy back several times, in November 2011 Suzuki took the case against the partner to the international arbitration court.